by Krista | Jun 4, 2024 | Winter
“I hope you believe that you can still make a beautiful life for yourself
even if you lost many years of it to grief,
or darkness,
or a wound that wouldn’t close.”
Bianca Sparacino
Many things are wondrous to me: love in a cruel world, plants that come back to life after drought, fire, or hail, and people who choose kindness when life has given them every possible excuse to go to the dark side.
This week my wonder has turned inward as I discover that the hope I’ve clung to that life might be good again has deepened into a belief so strong I can feel it in my bones.
I know I’m going to be OK.
I don’t know what it will look like, but that’s alright. For now, I’m just focused on slowly, steadily, and gently building a strong foundation.
I’ve discovered that rebuilding looks a whole lot like cleaning. Sorting through boxes, sheds, and shipping containers, clearing away what no longer suits, carting all the broken, unusable bits to the dump or the burn pile, and donating the good stuff that doesn’t fit my new life, trusting it will bring joy to someone else.
Rebuilding is decidedly non-glamorous and mostly involves days spent covered in dust and cobwebs, my skin an assortment of scrapes and bruises as I remove the old to make room for the new, honouring the old stories and my need to write new ones.
As I clear each shelf, each corner, each patch of earth, I feel an unexpected but most welcome excitement stirring as I envision new uses for those spaces.
I’ve turned the granny flat into a rustic bunkhouse for my loves to stay in when they visit, planted winter gardens full of artichokes, peas, cabbages, lettuces, leeks, garlic, and flowers, and I’ve made steady progress in transforming the sheds into usable spaces for sewing, wood-working, and all the fun foodie things I love to do like brewing, fermenting, and preserving.
For now, it’s mostly solitary work, but, it makes me smile to picture future days with medieval mates hanging out in the woodshop making furniture or shields, clustering around a big table with friends working on crafts of some sort, and gathering with dear ones around the bonfire, visiting for hours and making amazing memories.
Life will always hold challenges, but I’m doing my best to face them with shoulders squared and head held high, looking for ways to make even the hardest days a bit more beautiful and easier to bear. xo
by Krista | Jun 23, 2022 | Winter
I love the quiet darkness of winter mornings before the rising sun turns the frosted fields into shimmering gold laced with mist.
I wrap cold fingers around my coffee mug and close my eyes, listening to the steady ticking of the cuckoo clock, the rhythmic thumping of wagging tails outside the back door from dogs eager to come in for a snuggle, my heartbeat.
A few weeks ago there was no heartbeat.
I had taken my badly injured husband into the hospital to have his knee tended. We winced and grimaced together as the doctor probed and bent, figuring out the best way to get him back to fighting strength. The doc turned to update me on the plan then asked, “Are you OK? You don’t look good.”
I don’t remember much after that, but they told me later I scared the hell out of them when I collapsed, turned blue, was unresponsive, and had no pulse. They thought they’d lost me. Thankfully, ten rounds of CPR brought me back and I remember a woman saying, “There she is. We’ve got her.”
I’m so glad they didn’t lose me that day. So glad they fought for me and won.
The last month has been a flurry of hospital and doctor visits, ambulance runs, and innumerable tests, more collapses and more tests as we tried to figure out what on earth is happening with my dear ol’ heart.
Bear has been a rock through it all, teasing me about being his zombie wife in the good moments, hugging me tight during the weepy, scary ones. My luvs have been wonderful, cheering and comforting, calling or messaging to ask the all-important question, “Are you alive??!!” YES!
We don’t have all the answers yet, but I started on medication last week that is working wonders. Before, just walking to the car or into a shop had me shaky and breaking out into a sweat, needing to lay down before I toppled over. Not anymore. I’m able to garden again and run errands and work in the newsroom with no more zombie moments.
Such experiences have a big impact. It’s been scary and overwhelming, frustrating and exhausting. The what ifs haunt us now and then. What if it had happened while I was working on the farm or on the road for work and no one had been there to bring me back? We have much to be grateful for.
My world has slowed and quieted as I’ve made the changes necessary to bring my life back into alignment with my clarified values and priorities. Boundaries have been strengthened to make ample space for what I want to fill my days with, money invested in the tools and ingredients needed to do the things I love.
I’m off work today, so we have plans for adding purple asparagus, sugar snap peas, artichokes, and rainbow silverbeet to our winter gardens, making a run to the dump, and slow-cooking carnitas with cumin and orange juice. They’re just little things, but they make life beautiful to us.
What is making your life beautiful today? xo
by Krista | Jul 28, 2021 | Winter
Create space.
Create space for what matters to me. Space for what I want to learn, experience, understand, taste, and see. Create space for the life I want to live.
I’ve been mulling over these thoughts recently, taking time to observe how I spend my time and if it really, truly reflects what is important to me. My friend Mary recently shared this quote by Victoria Erickson:
“If you inherently long for something, become it first.
If you want gardens, become the gardener.
If you want love, embody love.
If you want mental stimulation, change the conversation.
If you want peace, exude calmness.
If you want to fill your world with artists, begin to paint.
If you want to be valued, respect your own time.
If you want to live ecstatically, find the ecstasy within yourself.
This is how to draw it in, day by day, inch by inch.”
Reading these words made me smile as it sent my mind whirling into the realms of what do I long for? What do I want? What delights, intrigues, and inspires me as I am now?
I’ve been playing with ideas for months, painting them, writing them, talking them through with Bear. I follow ideas like breadcrumbs, ideas for work and play and adventure and connection, experimenting as I go, embracing what sticks and releasing those notions that float on by.
In the beginning, it was really hard. My answers to my questions were mostly, “I don’t know.” My thoughts were muddied by musts and shoulds and by giving weight to voices not my own. But, I stuck with it, returning again and again to the question, “What do I want?” And slowly, steadily, clarity came, sometimes in bursts of inspiration, sometimes in gentle knowing. Each discovery was a gift, an affirmation deep in my heart, a hearty, confident YES.
I learned that I need to do a much, much better job at looking after myself. I need more rest, more downtime, more fun, more community, more adventure, more discovery. I’ve been creating space for those things and it has been so good for me, my marriage, my clients, my friendships, everything. I love seeing the glorious ripple effect of true self-care.
Some of the changes are really simple. I need more sleep than the average person, and I’ve finally made peace with it. I stopped setting my alarm and sleep until I wake up. I schedule meetings for later in the day so I can have a peaceful and leisurely start to my day and approach my projects and work and commitments from a place of rest and calm. My stress has plummeted and I have more time and energy to live my life rather than recovering from it.
I learned that walking and hiking are the best exercises for me. I hate going to the gym, running is the devil, but my whole being lights up at the thought of a hike in the mountains or a walk through the woods. Weight training is important for my strength and resilience, so I get that in through lifting feed bags, hauling rocks, and using a 6-foot crowbar to dig holes for trees, bushes, and fence posts. Rebuilding my body is no longer a misery. I know it will be a long process and I’m finally enjoying it and loving my body as it is even while I help it get fitter and stronger.
Other changes required some grieving and letting go. I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and I must adjust my life accordingly as I no longer have the strength and energy I once did. After grieving the loss of Old Me, I’m learning how to build a good life with Chronic Fatigue.
I still love gardening, but I’m shifting to gardens of mostly perennials, things that self-seed and look after themselves, plants that provide us with food without requiring so much effort from me. So, I’ve put in a lot of fruit trees, berry bushes, perennial herbs, and veggies like artichokes and asparagus that just keep going and going. I’ve put in drip-hoses to make watering easy, hung shadecloth to protect from the fierce Aussie sun and wind, and have Seasol and organic fertilizer pellets on hand to easily keep things well-fed.
We still love our farm, but we’re cutting way back on stock to make things easy to manage. When we sat down and talked things through we realised that we’d rather spend more time with each other and our luvs doing fun projects, visiting around the fire, and enjoying life. It will take time to downsize, but we’re looking forward to it.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about community. Covid has wreaked havoc in this area, disrupting so many events, traditions, and experiences where community is built and nourished. One way I’m connecting with people is through my workshops. I don’t do them to make money, but to create opportunities for relationships. Workshops are expensive to put on and I barely cover my costs each time, but I don’t mind because they give me a chance to get to know people and let them get to know me. For a few hours each month, we can immerse ourselves in creating something fun and interesting while being brave and opening ourselves to connections with potential kindred spirits.
I’ve loved every workshop. I’ve met wonderful strangers and forged new memories with old friends, heard amazing stories, laughed hard over the craziness of life, and even shared grief. No matter who attends the workshop or if things go smoothly, I always return home with a full heart, hopeful for the state of the world, grateful to the folks who take time out of their busy lives to invest in community.
I love that I never stop learning and growing and changing. I’ve heard folks say that people never really change, but I disagree completely. I’ve seen liars become truth-tellers, broken people become whole, fear turned into incredible courage. We can change, and that is a gift worth embracing and creating space for.
What is something you want to create space for in your life? xo
by Krista | Jul 12, 2021 | Winter
It’s a frigidly cold morning on our farm as I park myself right by the heater and sip copious amounts of hot coffee and herbal tisanes to keep warm. It’s a hot-buttered toast, cuddle with dogs, and snuggle under blankets sort of day. My favourite.
I’m feeling rather bubbly today, excited and full of anticipation as I share my books with you at last. With full-colour images and recipes I’ve developed and refined over the last 10 years, these books offer a blend of history, culture, and deliciousness that delight, nourish, and restore.
From Spiced Elderberry Cordial and Fenugreek Fever Gel to Rose Mint Pastilles and Wild Cherry Marshmallow Cough Syrup, this book is full of recipes that use things easy to find in your pantry, garden, or local farmer’s market to ease headaches, soothe upset tummies, and tend wounds. Embrace your inner wild spirit and discover how easy it is to mix and brew things that can restore you and your loves in mind, body, and spirit.
Click here to order.
From harvests in lush oases and seaside fishing hauls to foraging and hunting in the windswept desert, the food of medieval nomadic tribes was an ever-changing feast utterly dependent on weather, economic stability, and proximity to trade routes.
In these pages, you’ll find luscious, creamy pudding and piquant cheeses, succulent roast meats and delectable wine, spreads, sweets, dried yoghurt, and other ingenious recipes designed to withstand the searing heat of the desert.
It’s exciting to see how the ancient food practices of the Bedouin are perfectly suited to camping, road trips, hikes, and anywhere you don’t have access to modern conveniences.
A Comforting Brew
One of my favourite blends from herb & spice is Lemon Cheer Tisane. Opening a jar of this heavenly
tisane is pure happiness to me. Made of lemongrass, lemon verbena, lemon balm, lemon thyme, and lemon bergamot, it is a blend designed to calm the nervous system and cheer the soul. I also add a bit of peppermint to brighten things even more.
Lemongrass and peppermint can ease headaches, lemon balm and lemon verbena are soothing and aid digestion, lemon bergamot and lemon thyme are excellent for flu and cold symptoms, and lemon myrtle is an indigenous bush medicine long used to ease sinus problems and sore throats.
Not only is this tea soothing, cheering, and invigorating, it also smells divine and tastes great either hot or iced, especially when sweetened with a spoonful of real maple syrup.
Lemon Cheer Tisane
Ingredients:
1/4 cup dried lemongrass
1/4 cup dried lemon verbena
1/4 cup dried lemon balm
1 tsp dried lemon thyme
1/4 cup dried lemon bergamot
1/4 cup dried peppermint
Directions:
- Pour all ingredients into a medium bowl and stir well until blended. Store in an air-tight container.
- When ready to serve, place 1 heaping teaspoon in a tea strainer, pour over 1 cup of just-boiled water, steep for 3-5 minutes and sweeten to taste with honey or real maple syrup.
by Krista | Jul 7, 2021 | Winter
“Listen to me, your body is not a temple.
Temples can be destroyed and desecrated.
Your body is a forest—
thick canopies of maple trees and sweet-scented wildflowers sprouting in the underwood.
You will grow back, over and over, no matter how badly you are devastated.”
Beau Taplin
You will grow back, over and over, no matter how badly you are devastated.
How I love those words today. Love thinking of my body as a forest, not a temple, able to renew itself and grow tall and strong and verdant, over and over again.
The forest has always been a haven for me, ever since I was a little girl in Canada running as fast as I could along trails carpeted thickly with pine needles. I can still feel the spongy ground underfoot, smell the pine trees warmed by the sun, feel the dappled light on my face.
I’ve seen forests blackened by fire and scarred by logging, but, given time, they always come back. In Canada, they’d return with a crop of seedlings, brilliant fireweed dancing in the wind, huckleberry bushes, and plantain. Here in Australia, I see healing in charred gum trees covered with clumps of leaves that slowly become branches, frothy clouds of lantana flowers, and the sound of bellbirds in the undergrowth.
I feel burnt and scarred by the events of the past few years: cancer, hospitalization, virus, injured hubby, and the death of my brother, to name a few. Followed by the deep, internal changes that come out of such things. I have changed, and I’m still feeling my way forward, sometimes blindly, trusting that I will find where the new me fits.
The forest continues to comfort me as I go through these changes, reminding me that nothing stays the same, grief, loss, and pain are inevitable, but so are joy, wonder, and beauty.
I love seeing how broken things – trees torn out by flooding, branches sent crashing down from storms – now provide homes for amazing lichen, fungi, and the tiniest plants. Brokenness is not the end, not the final chapter, it just means change.
So, on days when grief is especially fierce, when the painful things of life seem to far, far outweigh the good, I go to the forest and wander and linger and weep and smile and get back to the things that nourish me in body, soul, and spirit so I can keep growing, so I can grow back.
I will grow back. xo
by Krista | Aug 31, 2020 | Winter
It’s quiet on the farm just now. Bear has run to town after working on a medieval project all morning, the dogs are snoozing after their morning exploration of the farmyard, and the goats and sheep are meandering peacefully through the paddock after filling up on the greens I threw over the fence. A pot of roasted garlic tomato sauce is simmering on the stove, almost ready to be bottled, and outside the sun is shining beautifully with lusciously cool breezes billowing gently through the trees and through the open doors of our farmhouse.
It’s almost spring.
Although winter is my favourite season in Queensland, spring is a close second with its verdant life and warm days and cool nights. With my symptoms from a 9 month bout of Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome steadily lessening, I’m overjoyed to finally have strength and energy to be outside in the gardens, orchards, and fields, getting our land ready for spring.
With five gardens and three orchards to manage, there’s always something to do, and after being terribly sick for 18 months, the to-do list to catch up on things is rather monstrous and totally overwhelming. So I break it down into tiny, manageable chunks and celebrate each bit of progress.
Over the past two months I’ve worked through four gardens, digging up beds, spreading and digging in compost, pruning existing plants that need it, setting up my worm farm and compost pile, and planting seeds and seedlings. Today I start on the last one, the hardest one where the beautiful natural black soil ends and the gravelly brown stuff begins. The weeds cling tightly to rocks wedged in earth so dry and packed that each bit requires a thorough soaking before anything will budge. It’s slow, tedious work, but I’ve come to love it. It slows me down, putting me into a gentle cadence of soak, dig, pull, soak, dig, pull until suddenly I look up and instead of a rock hard weed patch there is lovely, soft soil ready for bags and bags of compost to be worked in so it becomes productive land.
It is healing work for me. Some people write or paint or cook or exercise. I garden. I cannot stay anxious or fearful or sad in my gardens, for they drag me away from the news and the pandemic and the myriad sad and horrible things in the world, and connect me to that which is steadfast, beautiful, and something in which I can actually do something to make things better. The slow gentleness of the work also slows my thoughts down, clarifies what I need to do next and what I need to let go of, provides a safe place for my anger, grief, and frustration to be expressed. It reminds me to breathe, deeply, and to rest, often, and to always take time to delight in what I’ve done and learned. Bear grins when I burst into the house with a fistful of asparagus or a bowlful of peas. He knows how much it means to me to have a place that is just for me to grow and learn and create and fail and try again and succeed and forget and remember and learn some more. It has been the greatest classroom for letting go of perfectionism, for even though there is always something wonderful in a garden, it is never, ever, ever perfect. And how I love that.
This morning we decided to celebrate the end of winter with a spring breakfast. Bear went out and collected eggs and I headed to the gardens to collect the veggies of spring: baby carrots, sugar snap peas, spring onions, and asparagus.
I gently fried the carrots and spring onions in ghee until they were soft and lightly caramelised, then added the asparagus and peas just until they were glossy and warmed through. I scrambled the eggs with a bit of curry and topped them with the veggies and some homemade fresh cheese. Delicious. It makes us smile so big when we eat a whole meal from our farm.
Now it’s time for a cuppa and a rest with a good book. Soon enough chores will beckon and sauce will need to be bottled and wood-burned items will need to be finished, but just now, I get to read in the almost-spring sunshine and celebrate this beautiful last day of winter. xo
